The Free World Charter - Page 59

According to the CIA World Factbook, the total land area of Earth is 148.94 million square kilometers, with 17.34 million square kilometers used for crop production. In 2007, the US produced approximately 11,000 kg of vegetables per acre. According to the Institute of Simplified Hydroponics, a group of impoverished children in India has developed a 20 square meter hydroponic garden that produces 730 kg/year(1). If these yields were scaled to a full acre, those yields could increase to ~147,000 kg/acre(2). Using orbitropism, increased CO2 concentrations in the air, and LED lighting, yields could theoretically increase to between ~800,000 to ~1,500,000 kg/acre(3). By adding fulvic acid and gibberellin, yields could increase further. Aeroponic variants have demonstrated an 80% increase in production on top of standard hydroponic yields. With these estimates, it is theoretically possible to produce between 1.8 to 3 million kg/acre(4) – between 180 to 300 times 2007 production, enough to feed a few thousand people every year – and with vertical farming, these yields could be increased linearly. If 4.2 billion acres(5) were required to produce 1.3 thousand kg of food for each living person in 2007, the amount of land used for agricultural means could be dramatically reduced to as little as 3.5 million acres without stacking crops(6), to 1.75 million acres using 2 stacks(6), to 700,000 acres using 5 stacks(6), to 350,000 acres using 10 stacks(6), etc. Using advanced aeroponic facilities and vertical farming, it is physically possible to feed an entire city of up to a million people using only 10 acres of land and 50 stacks(7) – if the population increases, simply add more vertical stacks.